


i wish we met somewhere else

by danahscott



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Fanfiction of Fanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 20:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14941047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danahscott/pseuds/danahscott
Summary: Six universes in which Starla and Xavier find each other and fall in love.(This is a companion piece to my THG fic, "The 84th Annual Hunger Games," as a gift to my favorite person, rileyhart. She wanted them to be happy. I kinda obliged.)





	i wish we met somewhere else

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rileyhart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rileyhart/gifts).



> hey tilde, i know ur the only one reading this for obvious reasons, but i wrote sixteen whole pages bc i love you!!

Maybe there's a universe out there — happening now — where we end up together. [...] You just found me in the wrong universe. That's all. - Gaby Dunn

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

If this was their last moment, he couldn't waste it crying. But he didn't know what to say. "I wish we met somewhere else." And then, he shook his head, knowing that wanting something so badly couldn't make it true.

i. 

In another life, they meet at 5:27 on a Sunday morning. In this life, Starla loves someone who does not love her back. In this life, Xavier does not love anyone. She is sitting on the curb, her head in her hands. "Stupid, Starla," she says to herself. "God, that was so stupid."

The sky is just a purple-ish smear. The sun hasn't gone up yet. She's torn between wanting to go home and wanting to stay here, alone, for just a little longer. Plus, her head really hurts and she thinks she has to sit down for a few minutes before she'll be able to walk steadily. Starla doesn't remember all of last night. She remembers going out with Sasha - she hadn't wanted to go, but Sasha can be so sweet when she wants something. And of course, they ran into Steller at the bar. She wishes she didn't remember what she did next - "Steller," she'd said, drunk. Very drunk. "Steller, I love you, I love you so much, and I jus' think we could be, happy together, an' I want you - I want you to -" And then she threw up all over his shoes.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid." She wishes that was all, but unfortunately, Drunk Starla hadn't gotten drunk enough. She wants to black the whole night out of her memory.

She'd wiped her mouth, face flushed, and looked up at Steller who seemed vaguely confused and a little grossed out. His mouth was quirked to the sides and his ears were really red. "I need more drinks," she'd said.

"I think that's the last thing you need right now, Starla." Even after all of it, the way her name sounded in his mouth - the way everything sounded when Steller said it - so solemn, precious. "Come on, Starla, I'm taking you home."

"Mm, no, I want - Where's Sasha?"

"Uh… I think Sasha left a while ago."  
"What? She left me here?" She was so disoriented she hadn't even noticed Steller guiding her towards the door. His face softened, and he put his arm around her shoulders.

"It's okay, let's go. C'mon." Thankfully, this is where Starla's memory starts to peter out. Sasha had clearly talked her into drinking too much, and before she knew it, she was passed out in the front seat of Steller's car. She woke up this morning on his couch, feeling mortified and pathetic and very hungover.

"Stupid, Starla," she says again.

"Who's Starla and why is she stupid?" A voice sounds behind her. Caught off guard, Starla whips around, looking at the boy standing above her. She wants to shoot him, she really does, because nobody else is supposed to be out at 5:27 on a Sunday morning. Especially not someone her age, or someone who seems so at ease in the morning darkness. He flashes her a quick lopsided smile, and then shifts on his feet, like he really wants to know.

Starla wants to ignore him, or tell him to fuck off or something, but her head still hurts like a bitch and she figures if she tells him, he'll leave her be. "I'm stupid. And, um, Starla." She winces at her wording, but the boy's eyes seem to sparkle a little bit with amusement. He's kind of cute, really. He has thick, ruffled dark hair, and a flannel that's misbuttoned, and a sort of sleepy, happy look about him. She doesn't want to think about how she must look - her tights with runs in them, her heels in her hand, her smeared next-day makeup.

But this boy just chuckles a little. "I'm Xavier," he says.

Xavier has had a long night, too, but not a bad one. Not an unusual one, either. It was another night of getting drunk, going to a stranger's house, spending the night with them and leaving in the morning. It's become his basic routine. Xavier enjoys it. He is young. He wants to stay young forever. (In another life, he does.)

He wasn't going to stop to talk to this girl. But she's kind of cute, and it's dark out, and it's still night until the sun comes up.

"What about you?" she asks, head tilted up towards him. "Why are you out so early?"

"Ah. Me." Xavier turns red, just a little bit. He scratches the back of his head. "Uh, walk of shame."

"Oh," she says, her cheeks turning pink. But she's smiling. So he smiles, too. And it's right then that his stomach rumbles loudly. "Hungry?" Starla asks.

"Starved." And then, on impulse - he really doesn't do anything like this usually - "Do you want to go somewhere to eat? There's an IHOP around the corner." And she sort of smiles, blushes again, but she starts walking with him.

He really doesn't do this kind of thing. But it's a firm principle of Xavier's - you're responsible for your situation when the sun comes up. If you're still there when the light is shining, you have to stay and see it through. But there's an hour to go until sunrise, and having an early breakfast with a pretty girl won't hurt him. As long as the sky's dark, it's nighttime and he's free.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

She orders french toast. Xavier thinks she must be hungry, too. And her order sounds good so he asks for the same, and all of a sudden, he's strangely nervous. They're the only ones in the restaurant. "So… You had a bad night?" He winces at his awkwardness but she just smiles, a little self-consciously.

"Yeah, well. I may have gotten drunk and confessed my love to my study partner."

"Yikes."

"So drunk that I woke up on his couch this morning."

"I'm confused, now. Did the love confession go well, then?"

"Oh, no. Definitely not. But he didn't want me going home until I sobered up, and that really wasn't happening any time soon." Then, Starla laughs. Her laugh sounds like something unexpected bubbling up inside of her. Xavier likes it. He wants to hear it again. But the laugh dies down pretty soon, and her face looks a little more somber. "Guess he's that good of a guy." She's quiet for a moment. And then she rubs her eyes. "But my hangover hurts like a bitch."

"You don't drink a lot, do you?" She shook her head. "You get used to it."

"So, what's your story, then, Xavier?" She sets her elbows on the table and leans towards him. "Why are you out and about so early?"

"Just another late night, I guess. Crashed at a stranger's house." He tells her this because he does not want to say the words "one night stand." For whatever reason, he doesn't want her to think less of him. (He would be surprised what they are able to forgive in another life.)

But she doesn't press him on it. She does ask him a lot of other questions, though. He falls into a nice rhythm with her. He knew she was cute when he saw her on the curb, but there are things he is noticing now that he didn't before. She's got really nice eyes, for one thing. They look really green with the sweater she's wearing. And sometimes she smiles so suddenly that it takes him by surprise, makes him stop and look at her for a second. It's been a long time since he's sat down with someone and really wanted to talk to them.

He's kind of surprised at how much he missed conversation like this. Starla is surprised, too. She had been convinced that nothing good could come from the previous night, but now she's eating french toast, sitting across from a cute boy who seems to get shyer as the conversation goes on and the sky is a faint orange, pinkish color and things seem possible again. She loves sunrise. Makes her wish she got up earlier to enjoy it more often.

"The sun's coming up," she says, off-handedly. Just a remark so he'd notice the pretty colors. Xavier freezes for a second. His plate is empty, the receipt is sitting on the table next to them, and now would be the perfect time to go. Even two more minutes is pushing it. If he stays for morning, then he has to see this through.

But he just leans back in the booth. Somehow, he knows that if he leaves now, he'll be losing something. So, fine. The sun's coming up, and he's still here, and Starla is sitting there, smiling at him. Now he has to see it through. And maybe, he admits to himself, he wants to.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

In that life, timing worked out for them. In another life, they aren't so lucky.

ii.

In another life, there are no lights on when Starla and Xavier meet. It starts with a knock on his door at a quarter to nine. Xavier's apartment is lit with candles and when he opens the door he can only make out the figure standing there enough to know that he doesn't know her.

"I'm sorry," is the first thing out of her mouth. "I'm not from here and my phone's dead and it's just -" She's drenched in rain. She's shivering. He doesn't even think about it. He puts his hand on her back and guides her inside. Once she's in the middle of the candlelight, he can see her a lot better. "Wow," she whispers. "There are a lot of candles in here."

He laughs. "There are. You don't have to whisper, though. It's not a church."

She smiles at him. "Thanks for letting me in. I'm just - I'm lost, and I couldn't navigate to my hotel with my phone being dead, and - I didn't think it would storm this bad."

She shivers again and Xavier remembers himself. "Hang on," he says, and goes to fetch her a towel, relieved that he'd done a load of laundry the previous night. When he comes back, she's looking at the picture frames on his wall. Xavier had gotten bored with old family pictures, so now the frames were filled with art prints that he liked. He used to like to draw. There was even a time when he wanted to be an artist, but sometimes life pulls you elsewhere, and you have to grow up and make decisions.

"That's my favorite photograph. Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville."  
"Doisneau," she says, and his face lights up. She knows the photograph. He hands her the towel and she takes it, smiling gratefully. "I'm, uh, I'm in a photography class."

Xavier blinks a few times, and then looks back at the photograph. "I've always loved it. It's like, the people around them, the world - the world doesn't care about them. It's not even looking at them, it just keeps moving, indifferent. But the two lovers don't care. They're together, so…" He trails off, embarrassed. But she's just looking at him, and the candles glow around them. Her eyes are green. "So it's worth it."

(In another life, their eyes first meet when she's terrified. There is no talking about what they love, there is only a terrible fight that hasn't yet started.)

Silence hangs in the air for a moment. Finally, she breaks it. "I've always wondered what happened to them after the photo." She doesn't explain, but he thinks he gets what she means. Because even though there was no reason to think so, Xavier always thought it looked like a kiss goodbye. But that makes him sad sometimes, and he doesn't really know this girl, so he says nothing.

Actually, he really doesn't know this girl. He doesn't even know her name, and despite the fact that she likes the same photograph as he does, she's from out of town, and she looks really cute wrapped in his towel, he figures that he should know more about her if he's letting this stranger into his house. His friend Steller always tells him he's too trusting. Xavier's starting to think he has a point.

"Sorry, I don't think I got your name," he says.

"Right, yeah. Sorry, it's Starla."

"Oh, that's…" He fights a blush. "That's really pretty. I'm Xavier."

Even though she's wrapped in a towel, Starla keeps shivering. Xavier can tell she's trying not to. And he's starting to notice that she looks a little scared and alone, and he can't blame her. She's in some strange guy's apartment in a town she doesn't know and she's soaking wet. He would be scared, too. (In another life, he sees Starla soaking wet and bleeding and he realizes how scared someone can be.) So he thinks about what he can do to make things more at home for her, and he remembers what his mom used to do when he had a bad dream.

That's how ten minutes later Starla finds herself at the kitchen table, sipping hot chocolate across from Xavier. "Wow, I don't think I've had this since I was a kid," she says.

Xavier just smiles. Starla is still tense - she doesn't know what she was thinking. She wanted to use the guy's phone or something, but she had no one to call. And then he was getting her a towel and talking about his favorite photograph and making her hot chocolate, and Starla feels a bit of wonder at how she lucked out on getting the best person to help you out in a storm. And the thing is, he's nice, and cute, and a little bit funny without realizing it, which is the cutest kind of funny.

While sipping hot chocolate in the dark, she finds out that he's pre-med, but likes to draw, that his last name is Colmer and that he wouldn't tell her his middle name out of embarrassment, and that he's read The Outsiders seven times. She tells him that her middle name is Jane and that she tried to go by that name for a month, that she's just in town to visit some relatives, that she's currently undecided on her major, but she's leaning towards photography. She's just trying to convince herself that she won't go broke the second she gets out of school.

"I think you should do it. I mean, you have to follow what you love. Or else, what's the point?" he says, eyes flickering in the candlelight.

Time passes and keeps passing. Eventually, it's an hour and a half since Starla first showed up on Xavier's doorstep, and it's almost midnight. She's by the window now. They finished their hot chocolate a while ago. Hot chocolate tastes good, but Starla thinks her favorite thing about it is that you can feel the warmth travel down your chest. But it's long since gone cold in their stomachs.

It's so quiet in his apartment. All she can hear is the storm outside; the rain is still coming down in sheets. She wishes the power was on so she could charge her phone. She's been having a nice time with Xavier, but she knows she's overstayed her welcome.

"The storm hasn't stopped, but it looks like it's letting up a bit." She turns to Xavier. "I should get out of your hair."

"Huh?" He straightens, taking a few steps towards her. "No, it's awful out there. And it's late - just stay the night."

"You don't even know me, this is - this is asking too much."

"Starla, please. You can't drive in this weather. And you're phone's still dead so you still don't know where your hotel is, do you?"

She looks down at her feet. He's being so kind, it almost hurts. She's never met someone so kind before. Starla doesn't meet his eye when she says, "okay."

Xavier is so kind, he insists on her taking the bed. It's a one bedroom apartment, which means he's booted to the couch - in his own house. She protests, but sees it's no use. He said he was pre-med but Starla is starting to think Xavier majored in hospitality.

She's curled up under his sheets, and she thinks to herself, This is what it looks like when he goes to bed at night. This is what he sees. This is what his wool sheets feel like against his skin. The scent of him is all over me, this nice boy who took me in during a storm.

So when she sees him illuminated in the doorway, looking back at her, the words come tumbling out. "Don't go." Even in the darkness, she can see him looking at her. "Things won't be like this in the morning."

Those words sound vaguely familiar to Xavier, like maybe he read them somewhere. He should just go sleep on the couch, but he's pulled to her, he wants to be closer. So he slides under the covers. The bed isn't very big, but it's big enough. The whites of her eyes glow in the moonlight, but other than that, he can't see very much. So when Starla closes the gap between them and kisses him, it's all touch. But he closes his eyes anyway.

It doesn't feel like his first time kissing her. Everything about her feels familiar. He doesn't really believe in fate, but he thinks that somehow this night is important.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

He wakes up to an empty bed and sunshine pouring through the window. The rain had stopped. He blinks his eyes, blearily, and pushes himself out of bed and into the kitchen. Starla isn't there. She isn't anywhere. He starts to wonder if he dreamed the whole night until he finds the note on the counter.

Xavier -

Thank you for the hot chocolate and the towel and the bed. I've never met anyone as kind as you.

Love, Starla

P.S. I think they found their way back to each other.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

It takes him a long time before he realizes she was talking about the photo.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

The best lives are like those two. Lives where they meet in a soft world, where things don't always hurt when they end. In these lives, their memories of each other are always met with a smile, are always remembered fondly. In another life, Starla finds Xavier's lost cat. In another life, Xavier plays double bass and Starla plays violin and their eyes keep meeting over Nocturne no. 2. And in another life, Starla is reaped and Xavier volunteers and she dies in his arms, and he dies screaming two days after and they are forgotten by everyone. Some lives are luckier than others.

iii.

In another life, Starla knows Xavier before she meets him. She isn't supposed to. This isn't the way the universe works, but somewhere along the line, a mistake was made. When she's seventeen, she starts dreaming. Starla isn't used to her dreams being this vivid. She usually can't even remember her dreams.

They start out pleasantly. They begin with pancakes and sunrises. Photographs and wool sheets. Reunions in a coffee shop. But then, they get darker. There are hospital beds, and interrupted math classes. Dungeons and gunfire. Her most frequent dream depicts knives hitting the center of their targets with a thud, watching the sun get farther and farther away as she drowns, hearing the screams of the boy she loves.

She has these dreams for a year before she finally accepts that they're real. And Starla sets out to find the one constant in all of them - a boy named Xavier. Starla loves Xavier before she knows him. Because the thing is, she does know him. She sees his lopsided grin, his dark, curly hair. Even in the bad dreams, there is something so alive about him. He is so earnest and sincere, and he listens to her. Every version of him loves her back.

She doesn't know why she dreams these things, she only knows she must hold the secret of them close to her heart until she can find him. She allows herself the hope that maybe she was given these dreams, because this is the life where they are supposed to have each other. Starla spends two months looking for Xavier.

When she finally finds him, she's given the address of a hospital in the next city over. She tries not to think about this fact too much when she's on her way over. Finding out about him is her destiny, they're each other's destinies, and whatever happens, they'll be together. She believes this right up to the moment she knocks on his hospital room door.

He's connected to so many machines and tubes he almost disappears in the bed. At first, Starla thinks she has the wrong room. Because this can't be Xavier, this can't be the boy she's fallen for over and over and over. This can't be him. His eyes are sunken and his skin is sallow. His breaths come shallowly and unexpected. There is no lopsided smile. There is no mess of hair on his head. She takes a few steps forward, but she's frightened of this person. She knows Xavier, but now, he feels like a stranger.

Starla's feet eventually carry her to the side of his bed. This is not the face of a person who is going to survive much longer. "Oh my god," she whispers. And she starts to cry.

Xavier winces, and wakes up. The whites of his eyes are yellow. But his eyes widen. Starla can see him try to sit up and fail. "Starla?" he asks. She cries harder. She's been waiting for this moment for a year, but it feels longer than that. It feels like forever - and isn't that true? Every universe, they found each other. "I thought I dreamed you," he whispers. And a weak, fat tear rolls down his face and drips off the bridge of his nose.

"I knew you were real," Starla manages. "All those dreams where we found each other - I wanted to find you, Xavier." She sets her hand on his cheek. It's clammy and cold, but she doesn't take it away. Xavier leans his face into her palm.

"You did." He draws in a breath. It's clear that this is already too much exertion for him, that he's going to fall back into the blissful world of unconsciousness soon. "I wanted to find you, too," he rasps, "but I was so sick. I don't - I don't think I'm gonna make it much longer. I'm sorry. I so wanted to be with you."

Starla just leans down. Looks at him. Blinks a few tears away. "I wish we met somewhere else," she whispers. (Xavier says this to her in another life. Somewhere else isn't always better.) She presses a kiss to his temple. And then, she leaves. She carries the taste of dying with her all day.

Xavier watches as she goes. After two minutes of her absence, he doesn't know if he's just had another dream or hallucination. At this point, he doesn't know if it matters. He dies that night, the thought of her fresh on his mind. He is free to go to another life, another universe, to start over and find her again.

Starla reads his obituary in the paper the next morning. She thought they were meant to find each other. She thought the universe loved them. But it was just a fluke. It made a mistake. Not only with the dreams, but because in every other life, Starla dies first. Maybe it's that Starla was always meant to love Xavier, and he was always meant to lose her. Or maybe it's just the worst piece of bad luck.

Exactly a year after Xavier dies, Starla is killed in a car crash. The universe has a way of righting itself.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Does the universe love them? That question never gets answered. It has them meet each other, again and again, no matter what. But when the unhappy endings outweigh the happy ones, then what does any of it mean? Does it mean they should give up on each other? Maybe it does. But there's not a universe where they do.

iv.

In another life, Xavier has always known Starla. In this life, he has always loved her, too. And Starla has always loved him back. They have never told each other. They have loved each other quietly, through nights of sitting on the curb outside Starla's house licking drippy cones of ice cream, or staying up late in Xavier's basement watching movies together.

On the day his life changes, Xavier gets called out of his fifth period class. He is only a seventeen when he is told that his best friend might be dying. He doesn't find out what happens until he is almost at the hospital. His dad has his hands wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel that his knuckles have gone white. Xavier is almost too scared to ask. But he does ask.

"Dad? Where are we going? What's wrong? Why was I called out?"

His dad grimaces and looks down. "I'll tell you when we get there."

"Dad."

"We're going to the hospital, Xavier."

"What? Why? Is mom okay?"

"Your mom's fine." He pauses here, and Xavier's stomach sinks. Whatever it is, it must be bad. "It's Starla."

Xavier's face goes white. That can't be right, he thinks. What would be wrong with Starla? He wants to ask his dad this, but he has a stronger feeling that he doesn't want to know. And it doesn't matter because within two minutes, they pull into the hospital parking lot. Xavier can't get out of the car fast enough. He hears his dad yelling after him, but he doesn't listen. The automatic doors slide open and he stumbles into the lobby.

It's there that he realizes he doesn't know what floor she's on. ICU? ER? Was she in a car crash? A fire? Is it just getting her appendix taken out? Or did she get hit in the head during gym class? His dad catches up behind him. Xavier is frightened. Half an hour ago, he was sitting in geometry. So he lets his dad take his hand and lead him to Starla's room. Xavier wants to go inside and see her right away, but his dad makes him wait.

"Xavier? Just wait in the hall with me a minute. He slumps down in one of the chairs outside. His dad sits next to him. They've never been very close, Xavier and his dad, and Xavier could tell he was trying to find the right words to say. "Starla is suffering from, uh, well, they don't know exactly. She collapsed during one of her classes today. They think it's a heart thing. But Xavier," his dad says, pausing, readjusting in his seat, "she's in bad shape. I don't want you to freak out, okay?"

"Okay," Xavier says, freaking out. Because it's Starla. Because he remembers finding her half-crying, half-laughing in the hall last week because her pottery bowl exploded in the kiln. Because she wants to be a photographer, and she's good enough to actually make it. Because they haven't gone to see the new superhero movie they've been talking about yet, because she's only halfway through The Outsiders, because seventeen years isn't a long enough life for anyone. Because he's never told her how he feels.

He must have waited outside her room for an hour, but it feels longer than that. He combats texts and calls from Steller and Ebony, from all the people who have caught wind of what's happened. He doesn't want to talk to them right now. He wants to talk to Starla. Finally, her parents come out of the room. When they see him, they hug him. They cry. They say words he doesn't hear.

And then they let him into the room. When he sees her on the hospital bed, that's when he finally breaks down. He's just a kid, and she's just a kid, and the world is so unfair. He's supposed to be in English right now. He takes a few steps towards her, crying so hard it's difficult to breathe. "Don't die, Starla," he says. "You can't die." Her eyes are closed. She still looks so pretty.

He sits down in the chair next to her. He does not think anything could be worse than this. (He is wrong. In another life, there are shurikens, and there are stab wounds, and there are betrayals that happen right under his nose, and odds that were never in their favor.)

It's hard to explain what it's like to see your best friend lying half-dead in a hospital bed. And the truth is, Xavier has to see it in many lives. Starla is lucky. She sees him die once. He watches it happen over and over. Not in every life, but in too many.

Not this one, though. Not yet. Where before Starla and Xavier thought life was infinite for them, that they'd be young, and happy, and shy, and in love forever, they know the truth, now. That life is precious. And it will end someday. For Starla, she learns that it will end someday soon. She learns her heart is a ticking time-bomb in her chest, and each beat of it brings her closer to the end.

But when she wakes up, Xavier is there. She winces. Says, "I thought I was dead." And he lets out a laugh, thick with tears, and he says, "I did too. I'm glad you're not." It's not long after that when he tells her that he's always loved her.

Starla lives out the rest of her life with him. It's not a long one. She makes it to her early thirties. She lives a life full of love, full of passion, a life that anyone would be proud of. She is survived by a beautiful baby girl, and Xavier. It's not perfect. But it's one of their luckier lives.

v.

In another life, Starla and Xavier are on opposite sides of a war they don't understand. In this life, Starla is hard - she has to be hard, it's the only way to survive. In this life, their meeting is already the end of everything. When Xavier comes to, the first thing he notices is a girl sitting cross-legged keeping watch. The second thing he notices is that he cannot feel his legs.

The girl's eyes flicker down at him, interestedly, before looking away again. "What -" Xavier tries to use his voice, but it's a whisper. The girl looks back at him, surprised. He tries again. "What happened? Where am I?" Still hoarse, but a little stronger.

The girl seems unsure, opening and closing her mouth a few times, before finally she settles on nothing and Xavier is left to his silence. Things are sort of foggy. He takes in his surroundings - it looks like a dungeon. Hardwood floors, chains hanging from the ceiling, a cold dripping sound coming from somewhere deep inside. He's on a boat. But Xavier is pretty sure he knew that already. He's been on a boat for the past two months. He remembers that he's at war. He can't forget that.

But where is he now? He tries to sit up, but his legs still feel numb. This happens sometimes, when he's been sleeping too long, his legs don't cooperate. But still, this feels like a long time. There isn't even a tingling in them. He uses a hand to prop himself up, but collapses onto the ground again with a loud bang. The girl flinches a bit, but not away from him. Toward him. Like she wants to help. But then she looks away again, and Xavier tries to force some strength into his arms, until finally he's sitting upright.

He grabs one of his legs with both his arms, tries to move it. It feels heavy and dead in his hands. Xavier starts feeling a little sick. He grabs the other one, shakes it. "What's wrong with me?" he asks the girl, who is now determinedly facing away. "Why can't I feel my legs? What happened?" He's desperate now. He doesn't know where he is, or how he got here, and his legs have a numbness that refuses to fade. He balls his hand into a fist and starts hitting his leg as hard as he can.

His eyes start to brim when his hand is sore and his leg is not. "Come on!" He yells. "Come on!" He hits his leg again, again, again, and the only place he feels pain in are his fingers. Suddenly, he feels two hands on his wrist. The girl is looking at him, almost frightened. She's got his hand in both of hers, and she seems to be deciding what to say.

This time, she does speak. "You don't want them to come down here." That's all she says, and then she releases him, resting her back against the dungeon wall. The boat rocks back and forth, gently.

"Who are you? What's going on? What's wrong with me?"

She says nothing and Xavier lets out a frustrated grunt. And then, he starts to remember. He and Steller, working the wheel of their ship. They didn't see it coming. They should have, but their team has never been as efficient as was necessary. He remembers very little. He remembers getting hit in the head which might have something to do with that. He remembers another ship, and then something exploding, fragments of wood splintering, and then burning hot pain, and then nothing. Oh. They were torpedoed.

He can't find it in himself to be angry yet. He wonders if Steller is alive. More selfishly, he wonders what happened to his legs. "Please. Please just tell me what's wrong with my legs. Please," he says, and he starts crying, despite himself. Then, his face crumples and he starts sobbing. "Please, I just need to - I have to know."

The girl looks at him with what almost seems like indifference. "You're paralyzed."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

If she hears him crying himself to sleep that night, she says nothing.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

It's a kind of hopelessness Xavier hasn't felt before. Here he is, prisoner on a ship, away from his friends, hungry and unable to move. The girl brings him food twice a day. At first he was too despondent to eat anything, but eventually his hunger overpowered him and he ate. He hasn't seen the light of day, he hasn't seen any of the other members of the crew, he's been stuck in the dungeon with the girl who never speaks.

Yes, she's the enemy. He knows this. But she is the only other breathing thing in his world now. At the end of the third day, he asks her name.

"Why?" she asks in response.

He half shrugs. He's propped up against the wall, his legs laid out in front of him. "Because you're the only person I've seen for the past three days." He hesitates before adding, "because I think you're the only person I'll ever see again."

"Starla," she says, quietly.

"I'm Xavier."

Within minutes, he's asleep, and Starla is watching him. She waits until his breathing evens out, and then she cries. He asked her her name, and she felt the hardness start to crumble a little bit. She feels him start to pull her apart, this sleeping, paralyzed man they captured. He looks so young with his eyes closed. Gently, so she doesn't wake him, Starla lays him down so he is resting on his side instead of propped against the wall.

She has been hard for so long. It was the only way to survive. But within moments, that all falls away. (Even in a world where parents have to send their children to die, even in a world where she watches her ally die while she held his hand, Starla is soft. It was only a matter of time before it returned here, too.)

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

The girl - Starla - is still sleeping when Xavier wakes up. He hasn't seen her sleep before. She is his captor, he knows this. She probably helped kill Steller and the rest of his shipmates. But he is too exhausted to hate her, and he is only now wondering why she is down here with him all the time, like she's been punished, too.

She wakes up not long after he does, but she looks different now. When she looks at him, she seems frightened. Unsure. She disappears above deck and returns with two plates of food. Xavier guesses that Starla wants to eat with him now. She helps prop him up, more gently than usual, and sets the tray on his dead legs. Then she sits across him, facing him. Xavier is a little unnerved, but a little intrigued, too. He feels some trepidation, but at this point, he doesn't really care what happens to him. He has nothing left.

"I'm sorry about your legs." That's all she says, and then she shovels a spoonful of food into her mouth. Xavier says nothing, just looks at her. "I'm sorry about your boat, too."

"Please, just tell me one thing," he says, while she's talking, while she's looking at him, while he has a chance for answers. "My crew - did any of them make it?"

"I think so. I didn't see the whole thing, not once we got you on board. But I think so."

Xavier slumps back against the wall in relief. He tries to tamp down his hopes - but he realizes they'll never be confirmed or refuted, so screw it. He'll hope for the best. Starla is studying him, and there's a softness in her eyes that wasn't there before. He should hate her. But he doesn't even know her, and maybe she'll change his mind before he remembers his anger.

"Why are you the only one guarding me?"

She hesitates, and then answers him with what seems to be the truth. "Because they don't trust me to do anything else."

"They don't - what? Why not?" He remembers the crew on his boat, how even if they didn't all get along, they had each other's backs. He remembers the importance of a crew you could trust. He was told the other side was different, but how different are they? "Starla," he says again, "why don't they trust you?"

"Because I was taken prisoner, too. That's how I got here."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

She tells him the story. She wasn't on Xavier's side of the war in the beginning. She wasn't on her crew's side either. She wasn't on any side at all. Starla and her father were known for their skills. Before the war, when she was just a child, her father had taken her sailing for weeks at a time, taught her what kind of fish was safe to eat, how to navigate in a storm, how to look at the stars and tell the direction you're going in. As she grew, these skills were refined into mastery, and Starla and her father made a living off of making long trips to partake in trade or to send messages overseas.

Then the war came. It soon became clear that part of the battle would be fought at sea. At first, the soldiers asked for the help of Starla and her father. But, after being refused, they captured them.

Starla describes watching her mother be killed, hearing her father's pleas to spare his daughter, and then, feeling a sharp pain and waking up exactly where Xavier is sitting right now. She was told that if she assists the crew, then no harm will come to her father. She can only guess that her father was told the same thing about her.

By the end of the story, silent tears are rolling down her cheeks. She tilts her head, looks at Xavier who has remained silent the whole time, but whose eyebrows are furrowed with what seems like concern. She reaches her hand out and sets it down on top of his.

"I'm sorry you were taken. If I could change that, I would."

"So do something," Xavier whispers. "Help me." He sounds desperate and hopeless at the same time.

"The only way to help is to bring you meals and keep you quiet. There's nowhere else we could go."

Xavier shakes his head and looks down, face contorted with frustration. Starla sighs, standing and heading to the upper deck. Before she's completely out of earshot, though, Xavier says something, very quietly. "I'm sorry you were taken, too."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

For the fourth night in a row, Starla hears Xavier crying himself to sleep. It's the long-abandoned wish for another person who understands, for human connection one last time, that causes Starla to crawl over to where Xavier is laying and wrap her arms around him. He tenses for a moment. He's scared, and Starla can't blame him for that. But slowly, he starts to relax, and that's how they fall asleep, entwined in each other's arms, in the dungeon of a ship headed deeper into darkness.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

A week passes. Xavier gets used to the slimy texture of the fish Starla brings him. He gets used to the idea of staying in the dungeon forever. Starla tells him that she doesn't know exactly why they're holding him, but she's heard that maybe they want to use him as a bargaining chip, or as a symbol to the other side.

He tries not to think about that too much.

He and Starla get to know each other more and more. She starts reading to him from an old copy of ancient myths, her favorite book growing up. It stops feeling like they're on opposite sides, and more like it's him and Starla against the rest of the crew. The rest of the war, maybe. And though they don't ever talk about it, every night, Starla lies with him. He wakes up and she's gone.

But she spends more time with him than she does above deck. She's all he has left - his crew is gone, his boat is destroyed, and his legs are useless. The girl from the first few days is gone, and she barely feels real. Starla's edges are soft, and her heart knows the same pain as Xavier's. She loves myths and she knows how to navigate the stars and all she wants is to be free of this ship, to find a little house in a quiet place and live the rest of her life there. Every day, he falls a little more in love with her.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

It's at the end of three weeks that Starla shakes Xavier awake in the dead of night. Hours earlier, they'd fallen asleep together, but it seems that Starla's been busy since then. "Xavier, I'm going to get you out of here."

"What?" He rubs his eyes, blearily. "Now?"

"No. We're docking in a week, and we're staying overnight. I know when they sleep, and there's a guard who always falls asleep on watch. I can get you past them."

"What about you?"

She pauses. Her eyes flicker down to his, unsure. "I'm leaving, too. And I understand if you don't want this, after everything, but… I'd like to come with you."

Xavier sits on this a moment. He wants it, too. But there's something nagging at him. "What about your father? What will happen to him?"

She says nothing for a long moment. He wonders if she'll say anything until she clears her throat, thickly. "My father's been killed. I heard them talking about it a few nights ago. They don't know I know."

It's then that Xavier recalls a memory, fogged with sleep, of waking to Starla curled up on the other side of the dungeon, crying as quietly as she could. He thought he dreamed it - and if he hadn't dreamed it, well, Starla had a lot to cry about. But she must have just heard the news that her father had died.

"Starla - are you - I mean -"

"Xavier, I've always thought that if my father died, I'd stop helping them, I'd just let them kill me, I'd - I'd give up." The next part is whispered through a rush of tears. "And then I met you." And then she is kissing him, and everything makes sense. This is what people go to war for.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

They only discuss the plan at night, when everyone is asleep and things feel possible. The day that they dock gets closer and closer, and Xavier starts to feel more hopeful. A quiet life with Starla, away from the battle. It starts to feel real. They're two days away from escape when Starla goes above deck.

She does this often, so Xavier thinks nothing of it. Until she starts to scream. "No, please! I did nothing wrong, I've - I've helped you!" Terror seizes his body. Everything seems to disappear except Starla's voice. "Why? Why are you doing -" Her voice is cut off by a large thump.

He can't use his legs, he can't help her. But he tries anyway. He uses his arms to try and pull himself across the floor. She's gone silent, but the thumps continue. He's halfway to the stairs when the door bangs open and sunlight floods through the room. He remembers Starla's hands on his, her warning: "You don't want them to come down here." So Xavier closes his eyes, pretends to be asleep. Whoever comes down the stairs is heavy-footed, and he grunts with each step.

He does not even look at Xavier. He lays something down and then heads back above deck. As soon as the man is gone, Xavier opens his eyes, breathing heavily, scared at what he might find. He turns his head. Starla is laying across the room, bloody and still.

He crawls as fast as he can, dragging his legs behind him. "Starla?" he calls out. She doesn't move. "Starla, please, say something." She doesn't. She's silent. It feels like an eternity of time, but finally Xavier reaches her. Her eyes are shut, her long hair that's usually pulled back is loose and splayed out around her. There's blood coming from her nose and the corner of her mouth. Already, she's bruising. But she's breathing. That's the first thing Xavier checks.

Gingerly, he shakes her. She doesn't stir. "Please, Starla, wake up." Nothing. She's still. For the first time since the first week he was here, Xavier feels helpless - completely alone.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

She doesn't wake up for three hours. Xavier starts to wonder if she'll ever wake up at all. But then she is, wincing, breathing shaky breaths, blinking at him. "Thank god," Xavier whispers.

As soon as she's conscious, tears start dripping weakly down the side of her face. "Xavier?" she whispers.

"I'm here."

"Okay."

He breathes in and out, looking at her. "What - what happened?"

"They had to make sure I couldn't escape. I guess they know me better than I thought." She looks at him with so much pain in her eyes that it reverberates back to Xavier, bounces around in his heart. Why is this the life they've had to have? Isn't there a better one out there for them? (There is, but in this lifetime, they will never know it.) "Xavier," she says, "I feel…" She groans a little bit. "I don't know, I feel…" And then, her eyes shut again, and she is still once more. He wants to help her, he wants to do something, but there's nothing to do.

So he does what she always does for him. He wraps his arms around her, and falls asleep.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

She is feverish the entire next day, and he is hungry. No one is bringing him food. He blots at her sweaty forehead. And the next time she wakes up, she stays awake. They dock, and neither Starla nor Xavier does anything about it.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Things remain the same for the next three weeks, except any hope is gone. They have each other, and that is all they have. They have been together two months, but it might as well have been a lifetime. Xavier thinks they'll stay down here forever. But they don't. Nothing lasts forever.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

It's the end of two months when his crew comes back for him. But he doesn't realize what's happening at first. Starla is re-reading to him a myth from the same tattered book, and then she's interrupted by gunshots. It's so loud, it leaves Xavier's ears ringing. Starla's eyes find his, and they're full of fear. He can't move, and she won't leave him. They hope that whoever is shooting at her crew forgets about the dungeon, but soon a door opens.

Starla scrambles in front of him, shielding him from sight, and holding his hand so tight her knuckles are white. There is a man with a gun walking down the stairs, and Xavier tries to make Starla hide behind him, but he doesn't have his legs and she has hers and so she is in front of him when the man with the gun raises the rifle.

Xavier recognizes the man a moment too late. "Steller?"

Steller fires. And Starla falls.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

It feels like the end of the world, all the explosions, and gunshots, the orange light seeping through the dungeon door and the horrible smell of smoke and blood. Starla supposes she always knew this day would come. She supposes that she's been hurtling towards it since the war began and she was taken prisoner. She never understood this battle, why people were willing to lose so much for things that didn't really matter at all.

But now, she is staring down the barrel of a gun and the boy she loves is behind her, and his hand is grasping at hers and she knows. This is why people go to war.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

It's sad to say that more of their lives end like this than don't. It's impossible to figure out. The universe hates them. It makes him watch her die. The universe loves them. It makes sure that in every life, they find each other. Both Starla and Xavier would agree - as long as they have each other, any life is worth it.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

vi.

In another life, Starla and Xavier are just children, and she is dotting his face with a brown marker because he is jealous of her freckles. The spots don't rub off for a week and her mother is very mad at both of them, but it makes him laugh when the marker tickles his face and it makes her laugh when he scrunches up his nose in the mirror.

Offhandedly, Xavier's mother says to him, "She's gonna be so pretty one day, you won't even believe it."

Xavier thinks to himself, I already can't believe it.

They are eleven years old, and they are in love before they know what love means. He pushes her into the pool with her clothes on, and she pulls him in after. They fall asleep under the big willow tree in her backyard. He is a whole four inches shorter than her, and she doesn't let him forget it. They learn to bake chocolate chip cookies together and almost give each other salmonella. In this life, they never stop being happy.

And then, Starla's dad gets a job on the other side of the world. It's raining the day they say goodbye to each other. It's so cold that by the time her car leaves, Xavier can't feel his feet. She's crying a little bit, and he's trying valiantly not to cry, but his eyes are misty anyway. Before she goes, she leans down and brushes her lips against his, a clumsy little-kid kiss. She whispers, "I wanted you to be my first." And then she's gone.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Starla is eighteen when she comes back to the same town. She's just settled into her dorm for the first time, and though she should stay and get to know her roommate, she's dying to see if the coffee shop has as good coffee as it did hot chocolate. It's a sunny day and she feels so nostalgic to be back home that she thinks it might kill her.

There's the same old dude working the register. She used to know his name, but she's forgotten it by now. She doubts he'd remember her anywhere. Starla orders a mocha and sits back to wait. It's been a long drive here, and she's still sore from being scrunched up in the passenger's seat, not to mention the too-tight hug from her mom.

She sits down, shutting her eyes for minute. feeling the light shift under her eyelids. When she opens her eyes, a boy in line is staring at her. She lifts a hand in a tentative wave, but he doesn't respond. He doesn't look away either. Starla thinks it's a little early for someone to be making a pass on her, but maybe this is what college is like? She wonders how old he is, if he's going to her school or just lives in the town. And he's tall, really tall. It's kind of startling. But then he gets to the front of the line and has to look away to order.

"Hey, Gary," he says, and Starla half-laughs. So that's the barista's name.

"Your usual?" Gary asks. The boy glances over to Starla again, and then shakes his head.

"Actually, can I get a hot chocolate? But, uh, with…" He sneaks another look at her. "But with soy milk, so it's sweeter." And then, he looks directly at her. Starla feels herself turning red. Because that was her order when she lived here. And then the boy - Xavier - walks over, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Hey," he says, looking down at his feet. He's blushing, too.

"Xavier?"

"It is you, then?"

"I'm sorry."

He blinks, a little surprised. "What? What are you sorry for?"

She starts laughing, without meaning to. "I didn't recognize you! You look so different, I mean… You're so tall now!" (In another life, he asks the same question as she's dying in his arms. They are younger than they are right now, and there is no happy reunion for them. Today is different.)

"I gotta say, you… grew up really well." He can't seem to meet her eye for more than two seconds at a time. It's kind of cute.

She takes in his messy dark hair and his freckle-less face and says, "I'm not the only one."

He finally looks at her and smiles. "Why are you in town?"

"I live here again. It was move-in day. Are you… are you sticking around too?"

"Yeah. It just feels like home, you know?"

The sun is shining angled light directly on him through the window. She didn't even realize she missed him until now. But she never stopped thinking about him. Not once. "Trust me, Xavier," she says, smiling. "I know."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

They will get their drinks and take a walk in the same park they used to play in. They will tell each other everything about what their lives have been like for the past seven years. They will go to classes and meet their roommates, but they will become each other's favorite people again. They will go to waffle houses at one in the morning and they will help the other take shelter from a storm. They will dream of each other. They will walk out of math class when the other is sick and sit by their side until they're well again. They will hold grasp each other's hands and fight for each other.

In a few months, they will share a real kiss, and fall in love with each other all over again. They'll live out the rest of their lives together. But now, Xavier is just smiling down at Starla as the sun turns him golden, and they know that they're home.

In their most precious lives, Starla and Xavier find their way back to each other.

**Author's Note:**

> if u read this and ur not tilde (miraculously) find me on tumblr @bellamysgriffin


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